“You need them both,” Ezra told Atlas after seeing Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona face off in the row of the century. “When the time comes, you absolutely must take them both.”
“But they have the same specialty,” Atlas pointed out, looking doubtful. His hair had started to grey at the temples a few years before, so by then he had opted to shave it off. “Don’t you want to be initiated? You were always meant to be the sixth.”
Ezra paused to consider it. He had always intended to be initiated someday, but suddenly the formality seemed unimportant.
“You’ll have to have both,” he repeated, adding, “Nor do I think you could conceivably get one without the other.”
Atlas mulled it over, considering the idea from all angles.
“They’re… physicists, you said?”
“They’re mutants,” Ezra said. （High praise, in his opinion.） “Absolute mutants.”
“Well, keep an eye on them,” said Atlas thoughtfully. “I’ve got something else I’m working on right now.”
Easy enough to do. Assuming the unremarkable role of a student two years above them despite being born nearly twenty-five years before meant that Libby in particular proved herself to be intriguing to Ezra. That wasn’t an interesting story, particularly after knowing it would eventually sour.
As for Nico, they never quite got on. Ezra already knew he was giving up his spot for Nico, or for whomever Atlas found to serve one of the more necessary roles among the six. （A naturalist, Atlas said. What did they need plants for? scoffed Ezra, only to be met with Never mind about the plants, I’ve got a feeling, you’ll see.） At least Nico made things easier by rendering the offer impossible for Libby to refuse.
It was the year leading up to their initiation that finally opened Ezra’s eyes to the possibility that he may not have been starving so much as fasting. Now that Libby and Nico were gone, Ezra was left performing his cultivated mundanity for a fleet of empty seats. Worse, he had underestimated the discomfort of no longer being integral to Atlas’ plan.
“Nonsense, of course you are,” said Atlas. “In fact, I suspect you can do the ritual this year after all.”
“How?” Ezra asked irritably. Boredom stung, it itched somewhere intangibly, like a cramp in his calf. “Five are initiated, not six.”
“Yes, but I suspect I was wrong about Parisa,” Atlas said.
Ezra frowned. “Is she not as good as you thought?”
“No, in terms of ability she’s precisely what I’d hoped.” A pause. “But I suspect she’s a problem.”
“What sort of problem?” Ezra was unaware Atlas had any of those. As far as he knew, everything was going swimmingly without him. Hence the boredom.
“A problem.” Atlas sipped his tea. “I can convince her to get the others to kill Callum, at least.”
“Which one, the empath?”
“Yes.” That was always the one meant to die; even the perfect group of candidates would have to lose a member, after all. In Atlas’ eyes—and Ezra agreed—Callum was the equivalent of a nuclear code, and ridding the world of him was a favor to humanity. “Then you can have Parisa’s spot.”
“Oh yes of course, just kill her and take her spot, everything all neat and tidy,” Ezra said, waiting for a laugh that didn’t come.
Atlas sipped his tea again, and Ezra blinked.
“What?”
No reply.
“Atlas,” he growled. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“She slept with your girlfriend, for one thing,” Atlas offered with a misbegotten smile.
Which was not an answer, so Ezra rolled his eyes.
“Libby doesn’t know a thing about me. Bit hypocritical, don’t you think, if I held that particular blemish against her?”
“Regardless, you know there’s a bonding aspect to initiation. You’ll have to become part of them somehow if you plan to take their initiation oath. Sacrifice will do the trick.”
“And if I don’t want to be initiated?”
Atlas’ cup paused partway to his lips. “What?”
“I don’t see the point,” Ezra said restlessly. “You’re here, aren’t you, with me? What do I need to be part of the Society for? I’ve been on your side since the beginning.”
“Yes, and it’s been exceedingly helpful,” said Atlas, setting his cup to the side.
There was something about the foreignness of the motion—Atlas had never liked tea, preferring extreme intoxication instead—that made Ezra wonder whether he really knew Atlas Blakely at all. He certainly had at one point, but over two decades had passed since then, and Ezra had missed them. What might have happened to Atlas’ mind, to his convictions, to his soul? What had initiation into the Society done to him?